smile current account pays 5% (sort of..)

realaledrinker

You'll have to bear with me on this.

I have a smile current account and a smile savings account. The current account pays 3.3% and the savings account 4%. By moving my salary straight into the savings account on payday & drip feeding it over to the current account when needed, I effectively get 4% interest. As I have internet access at work, this is easy to administer & it is the first job of the day, a quick 1 minute, job done.

The Co-op bank website is today advertising a new savings account which pays 0.25% below base (4.5%), guaranteed until 2008 with a 0.5% bonus for the first year if you keep in at least the min. initial deposit in for a year of £5,000.

Now I figure if I fund the account with £5K of my stooze money & use it instead of the smile savings account, I will effectively get 5% on my current account by continuing to move funds to/from that account as needed. A phone call to my local branch confirmed that transfers between smile & co-op accounts are instantaneous. OK, I will need to log onto 2 different web sites if a transfer is required but this seems a worthwhile moneysaving exercise for any nerdy smile account holder.

When I explained all this to my wife tonight she suggested I get a life (whilst at the same time quite happy to see my stooze profits rolling in!).

Comments?

ffacoffipawb

realaledrinker wrote:

Comments?

Nationwide Flexaccount and E-Saver ?

grumbler

A&L Premier Plus Current Account (5%) + A&L Online Saver (5.35%) + £25 cashback + (£10+£6) cashback (LineMyPocket)

MarkyMarkD

I think that whilst the A&L account suggestions are good, the OP's suggestion works perfectly well as a means of getting pretty much 5% on his savings and current account balances. I'm not sure it's worth the effort of moving current and savings accounts from smile to A&L given this 0.5% bonus promotion and the fact the other account is all set up and working already.

Cardinal-Red

Also as the OP is funding his minimum deposit with stoozed cash, what happens if he's unable to replace it at the end of any introductory deal - might not all the extra benefits disappear.

It's a good idea though and one I've been using with smile for a few months now. But on the levels I'm moving 0.5% makes little difference here or there to be honest!

MarkyMarkD

Paul_Varjak wrote:

The A&L 5.35% savings account is not a 0.5% bonus promotion

I didn't say it was. The Co-op Bank account IS a 0.5% bonus promotion, though, and with that bonus it's a good rate.

No-one has suggested moving accounts, only indicating that you can do the same thing better with banks other than Smile - I certainly do with Halifax!

I don't know why you suggest no-one has suggested moving accounts. Both grumbler and yourself suggested A&L Premier Plus which you can't have without paying in £1,000 a month. Anyone who does that, without moving accounts, for the benefit of the extra 0.35% is off their chump IMHO - you lose interest transferring the money into the A&L account and lose interest again transferring it out when you need it to pay bills etc.